Jeffries needs to listen to Chris Van Hollen

 

Bingo.

DOGE was NEVER about efficiency

 

Garcia moved from CECOT

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen says Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported, told him he has been moved from the notorious Salvadoran prison known as CECOT to a detention center with better conditions.

Van Hollen says the Salvadoran man told him in a meeting Thursday that he had shared a cell with 25 prisoners and was fearful of many of them.

  KCCI

For now? And there are other Venezuelans who never got due process and who are reportedly not criminals we sent there. What about them?

Kilmar Ábrego García, mistakenly deported from the U.S., was moved from CECOT to a detention center in Santa Ana, El Salvador.

[...]

Ábrego García said his prison cell at CECOT had about 25 prisoners, and he was not afraid of them.

He told Van Hollen he was fearful of prisoners in other cell blocks, who taunted him. Most cells were packed with about 100 people, Ábrego García estimated.

[...]

Van Hollen and Ábrego García met at the senator's hotel. The Salvadoran government initially wanted to hold the meeting with the hotel's pools in the background.

  Axios

From the White House Twitter account

 

Now we know Kilmar Garcia is alive

 And looks well, anyway.

Good for Van Hollen.  Trump must be steaming.  Perhaps that's why he issued that stupid executive order.

Pressure works.

I'm guessing the stated intention of numerous Democrats to go check on Garcia had a lot to do with Van Hollen being allowed to see him.  That and the bad look for Republicans who were going to have to refuse to send a group of Congressional Dems on House funding.

Democrats are known for never letting a good opportunity pass them by.

I wonder what the mandated daily report by the administration to Judge Xinis said today.

UPDATE 04/18/2025:

Trump takes his cues from Fox News.

Resistance

Democrats are rushing to organize trips to El Salvador as President Trump refuses to comply with a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of a Maryland resident who was erroneously deported to the country.

[...]

[Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.).] and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) are trying to secure GOP authorization to lead a congressional delegation to visit deportees at El Salvador's Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), Axios first reported Tuesday.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is leaving Wednesday to travel to the Central American country. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is also planning a trip, as Axios first reported.

[...]

"We have to do similar kinds of things for the others who are victims of this dystopian attack on our Constitutional rights," said Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.). "This president is dangerous and we can't let this go."

[...]

The sentiment within the party about rallying behind deportees is not universal.

Some in the more establishment wing of the party have bristled at that approach, arguing it makes the party look frenetic without securing any concrete wins.

  Axios

Why? They're not securing any wins any way that doesn't look frenetic. Or any way, for that matter.

The second House Democrat who spoke anonymously, a centrist, called the deportation issue a "soup du jour," arguing Trump is "setting a trap for the Democrats, and like usual we're falling for it."

"Rather than talking about the tariff policy and the economy ... the thing where his numbers are tanking, we're going to go take the bait for one hairdresser," they said, likely referring to Andry Hernandez Romero.

Only if Trump tries to deport U.S. citizens, the lawmaker argued, will Democrats need to draw a "line in the sand" and "shut down the House."

Who is that asshole? They're not worth quoting on this important matter if they won't give their name. The tariffs take a back seat in importance to snatching up people and sending them to a foreign gulag. Did this person not hear Trump say that "homegrowns are next" or Tom Homan saying public officials are on the list?

Democratic aides and lawmakers told Axios they were bombarded Tuesday with calls from constituents and activists, similar to how DOGE and tariffs have dominated their switchboards in past months.

"It's a lot," one House Democrat told Axios when asked about the call volume they have received on the issue.

Said another House Democrat: "I just came from a round-table with two Dem activist groups and all they wanted to talk about was El Salvador."

[...]

It's not clear whether House Democrats will be able to get their formal delegation.

A spokesperson for House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) declined to comment on whether he would grant Garcia and Frost permission to lead a CODEL.

Come on. We know he won't.

Garcia suggested Democrats may forge ahead anyway with something more informal, telling Axios: "We've been discussing already what the other options would be. Our intention is to go to El Salvador."

As it should be.

UPDATE 05:41 pm:

US District Judge James Boasberg ruled Wednesday that “probable cause exists” to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for violating his orders in mid-March halting the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

The long-awaited decision on Wednesday from a judge President Donald Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked puts the administration on the path toward being punished for thwarting court orders.

[...]

“The Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt,” Boasberg wrote in a 46-page ruling detailing his decision.

“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions,” he added. “None of their responses has been satisfactory.”

[...]

Boasberg says he wants sworn statements first from people who can attest to the officials making the decisions not to turn the planes around as they carried migrants to El Salvador on March 15.

Then, Boasberg says, if those statements aren’t satisfactory to him, he will ask for live witnesses to testify at hearings or depositions.

The judge could then, he says, ask the Justice Department to prosecute Trump administration officials, or he could appoint an attorney as a special prosecutor.

  CNN

Obviously, he'd have to appoint a special prosecutor.

UPDATE 07/19/2025:

Biden's shameful behavior

I'm not talking about making nice with Donald Trump in the White House.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 11/14/2024:

Do it

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is expected to bring up a proposal today at a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting that would use Congress’s power of the purse to pressure the Supreme Court to adopt a “code of ethics.”

The committee will mark up three spending bills today, including the one that funds the Supreme Court.

[...]

The Early obtained an amendment he is expected to at least bring up for discussion, if not formally offer, that would withhold $10 million in funding from the court’s $110 million salaries-and-expenses account until Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. informs Congress “that the Supreme Court has put into effect a code of ethics for the Chief Justice and the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.”

  WaPo

And would the Supreme Court have to rule on that?

While Democrats back Van Hollen in principle, his effort is unlikely to advance because of concerns it could make an already fraught debate over the annual spending bills more complicated. And no Republicans are expected to back it.

Unsurprising that Republicans care nothing for ethics.  So...forget about it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.